ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad said: This is the testament my father left:

“This is what Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal bequeaths. He affirms that there is no god but Allah …”—and he went on to state:

“I owe so-and-so roughly 50 dinars; his word in the matter is to be accepted. The amount is to be paid out of the rent of the house. Once it has been settled, the children of ʿAbd Allah and Ṣāliḥ—every male and female—are each to receive 10 dirhams.”

Witnesses: Abū Yūsuf, and ʿAbd Allah and Ṣāliḥ, the two sons of Aḥmad.

We were told by someone who had heard Abū ʿAlī al-Muqriʾ; Abū Nuʿaym (1) informed us; Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad narrated to us; ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad narrated to us, saying:

ʿUbayd Allah ibn Yaḥyā ibn Khāqān wrote to my father, informing him that the Commander of the Faithful had ordered, “Write to you and ask you about the Qur’an—not as an ordeal, but as a request for knowledge and insight.”

My father therefore dictated to me:

“To ʿUbayd Allah ibn Yaḥyā.

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate.

May Allah grant you, Abū al-Ḥasan, the best of outcomes in all your affairs and, by His mercy, ward off from you every hardship. I have written to you—may Allah be pleased with you—what has occurred to me concerning the matter about the Qur’an which the Commander of the Faithful asked. I ask Allah to perpetuate the Commander of the Faithful’s success, for the people had been immersed in falsehood and in fierce disagreement until the caliphate passed to the Commander of the Faithful. Through him Allah removed every innovation, and the humiliation and confinement of the prisons that the people had endured were lifted (2). Allah turned all of that away by means of the Commander of the Faithful. The Muslims received this with immense gratitude and supplicated for the Commander of the Faithful. I ask Allah to answer on behalf of the Commander of the Faithful those righteous prayers and to complete that favor for the Commander of the Faithful (3). …"